In The Kitchen - One Dish Chicken Dinner

Here's a very simple recipe for those nights when you don't have a lot of time and don't want to do a lot of cleanup because it all goes into one dish.

Ingredients:

4-6 Chicken Breasts

New Potatoes

Green Beans

1 stick butter (melted)

1 packet italian dressing mix

Arrange the chicken, potatoes, and green beans in a 9x13 baking dish and sprinkle with the italian dressing mix and then top with the melted butter.  Cover with foil and bake in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour.

Banana Bread

What do you do with your over ripe bananas? Normally bananas get eaten pretty quickly at our house, but every once in a while we have a few that sit around and get overly ripe. When that happens, I like to make up a batch of banana bread.  Here's a great recipe that you might like to try.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 ripe large bananas, mashed well
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup chopped pecans
3/4 cup dark chocolate chips 

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour the bottom and sides of a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan and set aside. In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In another bowl combine the mashed bananas, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla and then add the banana mixture to the dry ingredients, stirring as little as possible.  Lightly fold in the nuts and chocolate just until combined and the batter is thick and chunky. (Do not over mix the batter, you do not want it smooth. Over mixing the batter will yield tough, rubbery bread.)

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until bread is golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 60 minutes. Place on a wire rack to cool and then remove the bread from the pan. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Makes 1 – 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf of banana bread

When I was making this loaf I didn't have dark chocolate chips on hand so I threw in some white chocolate instead and I really like the taste that it gave the bread.  You could mix up the types of nuts also, maybe use walnuts instead.

If you try the recipe, let me know what you think.  Happy baking!!

In The Kitchen - Mississippi Roast

This past weekend I tried out a new crockpot recipe. It was really simple and turned out pretty good so I thought I would share it with you. I found this recipe when a friend shared it on facebook and the original poster boasted that it was by far the best recipe they had tried, so naturally I had to try it out. Here's the recipe:

MISSISSPPI ROAST

Put chuck roast in crock pot, Sprinkle with dry Hidden Valley ranch dressing mix, add packet of dry McCormick Au Jus mix, a stick of butter, 5 pepperoncini peppers. DO NOT ADD WATER. Cook on low for 7-8 hrs

Mississippi Roast

Here's what it looked like in my crock pot.

Now, in case you are wondering, I had two roasts in there because I feed an army at my house. I threw in a bunch more of the pepperoncini and my ranch dressing was buttermilk flavored, but these are the only changes I made to the recipe. It was quite easy, which most crock-pot recipes I've tried usually are.

I let it cook for 8 hours on low and then sliced it. I drizzled some of the juices from the pot onto the sliced roast and served it up. The family loved it. I, myself, thought it was pretty good but would not go so far as to say it was by far the best recipe I had tried. I fixed a hash brown casserole to go with it that I much preferred to the roast. Maybe it's the thoughts of getting ready to start a low carb diet and knowing that potatoes will soon be off my eating list that swayed my opinion...maybe.

Anyway, it was pretty good, worth making again. I think I might try just regular ranch mix next time instead of buttermilk to see if that makes a difference.

If you try the recipe out, let me know what you think.

Pirates and Madagascar

My five grandsons all have birthdays within a couple weeks of each other which they just celebrated recently.  Both of my granddaughters birthdays are later in the year and within a month of each other and I have another grandson due to be born in a couple months, so his birthday will be in between the others.

Being that all of the boys birthdays are so close together, it is hard for this Grandma to find the time to bake that many cakes.  Luckily, this year I only needed to make cakes for two of them so I thought I would share those with you.

This first cake was for our grandson that just celebrated his 1st birthday with a Madagascar themed party.  So I made him a lion cake to represent Alex.  It was so simple to make and he loved it.

The second cake was for our grandson who was turning two.  He absolutely loves Jake and the Neverland Pirates so he had a pirate theme.  I thought about fashioning Jake out of fondant for his cake but then I decided that I would just purchase some of the character figurines instead because then he would be able to keep them to play with.

They were both pleased with their cakes and I enjoy making my babies happy - not that Grandma would ever spoil them. 

I am glad that our birthday season is over with for a little while.  Somehow, maybe, possibly, I think it could be the reason for my recent weight gain.  Apparently, I can overlook having to move my belt over a notch though, because I am looking forward to just baking for the fun of it, without worrying about how to decorate them.  Sometimes my greatest creations come out of my every day - "for no reason at all" - cakes.  Plus, I have an idea for a recipe for a chocolate cake that I want to try out.  If it works, I will share it with you ladies.

What about you, have you been baking lately?

Busy Homemaker

I have been busy, busy lately.  I've done some cooking and baking plus some sewing.  On the cooking front, I decided to make pizza for dinner the other evening and since it is getting close to Valentine's Day, I decided to shape our pizza into a heart.  What do you think?

I also made a pineapple pizza with a stuffed crust for my son.  I used string cheese to fill the crust with, but we weren't happy with the results, so I will be testing this again with a different type of cheese.  Any suggestions?

While I was in the cooking mood I decided to make my sweetie a special dessert, or two, actually.  I am under the thoughts that you can never have too many or too much dessert!  Anyway, this first one is a Cherry Shortcake.  It was pretty simple to make, tasted delicious, although the general consensus at our house was that I should have used strawberries instead of cherries, but it was yummy, none the less.  You can find the recipe for it here.

The next dessert I made was Chocolate Raspberry Hearts.  This was also very simple, except I had some difficulty shaping them into the hearts, but once I got the hang of it, it went fairly quickly.  It was, by far, my favorite of the two, full of hazelnut chocolate yumminess.  Here is the link for the recipe, I highly recommend it.

  
The Mister and I are planning a little Valentine's Day date and I have been searching for a dress to wear.  You may remember that discussion from this post where I shared a variety of Modcloth dresses with you.  Well, I have looked for weeks and just could not make a decision on a dress until time got away from me and I was afraid that which ever one I chose would not arrive in time.  I was also struggling with paying that much for a dress, that hopefully would become to large for me in the future, being that I am determined to loose some of my midsection.  

With all that being said, you may remember from this post, that I had plans to make a dress using the Vogue 8728 pattern, so I decided to break out the sewing machine and give it a whirl.  I used a jersey knit because I wasn't wanting it to be too formal and I wanted to be comfortable.   

Look for a future post on how this baby sewed up and what I think I will do differently next time I use this pattern.  So, what have you dolls been up to lately?

Busy Baker

Every Christmas I go into a baking frenzy.  I always try to make pies, cakes, cookies and an assortment of candies, but this year has been different.  I am just not feeling the Christmas spirit right now so I am way behind and have no motivation.  We even just got our tree up this past week and had it not been for my grandchildren, I probably would have just skipped it.  But, among the blah days, I have had moments of baking inspiration and popped out some delicacies this past week and weekend.

First I made a winter snowflake cake for our office Christmas luncheon.  It was a 3 layer white almond cake with a raspberry buttercream frosting.  This particular flavor is requested often in my family so I make this recipe a lot.

Then I wanted to try out a new recipe that I planned on using for my coworkers gifts, so I created a Mr. & Mrs. Snowman cake for the grandbabies as a test taste trial.  (Say that fast three times.)  I  made the snow people out of gumpaste and fondant.  The snowballs were mini marshmallows.

The test recipe was a hit so I then made cupcakes to give as gifts to my coworkers.  They are a dark chocolate cake dipped in a chocolate peppermint ganache and topped with a peppermint buttercream frosting.  I added a Hershey's Candy Cane Kiss for decoration.  

I found a neat way to package them on Pinterest.  You can see the post here.

All in all, it was a very productive weekend, but I think my burst of creativeness is over for the season.  Maybe the new year will be an inspiring one.

Thanksgiving Traditions

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I can safely say that besides Christmas, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, partly because I love to eat, but mainly because of what this holiday means to me.  The thankfulness of all that has been bestowed upon me.  To me, the very word, Thanksgiving, evokes images of family, in which I have been richly blessed.  It also brings to mind roasted turkey, an assortment of pies, a change in the weather, and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.  And let's not forget about the Black Friday shopping extravaganza.  

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The Holidays in my family are steeped in tradition.  For Thanksgiving, we women gather at my parents house and work long hours preparing the feast.  

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The parade is always commencing on the tv while we create our delectables and it helps keep the kiddos occupied.  Most of the men folk in my family are hunters and spend the morning hours out in the woods.   

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Dinner is always buffet style because our family is too huge to actually all fit around a table.  

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My father always carves the turkey and then he blesses our food.

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After the meal, we spend a lot of time just sitting around enjoying each others company and then we break out the sales papers and begin our plan of action for the craziness that is Black Friday.

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Does your family have any Thanksgiving Day traditions?

Weekend in Pictures

Today is my one and only daughter's 25th birthday.  She is my only little girl, born smack dab into the middle of five brothers.  This past weekend I got to spend some time with her and her family to celebrate her upcoming day.  

I baked her a cake.

And spent time with my granddaughter.

Later we went shopping and I found this wonderful square pedestal cake plate.

And these gorgeous spectator pumps by Aigner.  

(I also bought two Cloche style hats but I'm saving that for another post.)

The rest of the weekend was spent at home drinking lots of coffee.

Watching my grandson share his breakfast with a friend.

Cleaning my puppy dog's sleeping area, which is a big area, by the way.

Working on covering up our new water line through our yard.

Enjoying the last remnants of summer that's still hanging on.

And admiring the mist rolling into the valley behind our home.

So, how did you spend your weekend?

Soup Weather

When the weather turns chilly, I think there's nothing better than a warm cup of soup.  Here's one of our favorites that I made recently.

Potato Soup

6-10 medium potatoes
8 oz. cream cheese (softened)
1 stick butter
1 can cream of celery soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
2-4 cups heavy cream
salt to taste
pepper to taste

Peel potatoes and cut into cubes.  Place into stock pot and add water, just enough to cover the potatoes.  Cook until soft.  Add cream cheese and butter and cook until completely melted.  Add remaining ingredients and let simmer.

I like to garnish with cheddar cheese and bacon.  Yum!

Do you like soup on a chilly day and if you do, what's your favorite?

Wedding Cupcakes and More

A few weeks ago, I told you in my Upcoming Projects post that I would be making a dear friend's wedding cupcakes, so I wanted to share those with you.  In talking with her, we decided that she would need 150 cupcakes, a small cake for cutting, and a groom's cake.

The cupcakes and the small cake were all a white almond cake with a raspberry buttercream frosting.  Her wedding colors were purple and yellow so I decided on a small purple fondant flower to decorate the cupcakes.

The small cake for cutting was decorated simply with a symmetrical grouping of dots all over.  The Bride had a monogrammed topper to place on the cake.

The groom's cake was a dark chocolate cake with a peanut butter buttercream frosting - and given the Groom's love of sports, we went with a Boston Red Sox themed cake.

However, the groom's cake suffered a major mishap during delivery by way of flipping upside down in the back of the Mister's car.  Needless to say, it was not presented at the wedding, which was a bummer because I thought it was such a cute cake.

Here are the cupcakes and cutting cake displayed at the wedding.

And, in case you were wondering, this is what 150 cupcakes and two cakes look like getting ready for transport.

It was a lot of work getting it all done, and disappointment in losing the groom's cake, but overall I think it went well.